The Gates

Some of you will have your copy of The Road Home and you would have seen the Erindale gates on the inside. I wanted to tell you about them as I took that photo. The gates were made by my grandad Colin Stone, long before I was born. He was from Kulin and brought land in Pingaring and married etc. He had a son and three daughters, my mum being the oldest. At some stage he brought more land, which he named Erindale after my Aunty Erin, who is the youngest. And so he made up these gates. Later in life they sold the Erindale block so they could retire to Albany and the main farm, Gumlea, my Uncle continued to run. Even though another famer owns the land now, its still nice to drive past and see the history still standing there. It was the reason why the farm in the book is called Erindale. My

Here is just a few more photo’s I took while driving around. It’s just amazing to see so much water. Silvie, the boarder collie, checks out the water. This picture is of the driveway to my uncles farm, which we call Kate’s. All the water makes for some nice pitures. On Burngup Road, you can see the fence on the left which has been swept over the road. This is what is left after the water drains away. This is just one section of washed out railway. I went walking this morning with my mum down past Bakers to Byass’s where the water has ripped up all the bitumen across the road, swept all the fences on both sides of the road away and turned the wheat crop to mud. I wanted to go see how the wheat looked up close but it was still soaking in water and I was worried i’d

Two days a week I work at the local shop, Pingaring Agsolutions. We have everything a small town may need, groceries, alcohol, hardware, post, chemical, etc etc… And if i’m lucky i get to deliver chemical around seeding time, which means getting out an about. On Thursday I headed out to some local farmers, my mate Rach’s family, to drop off chemical they needed to keep spraying with. Rach was behind my inspiration for Izzy in my first book and is as much a farmer as any other bloke. Dropping off the drums. (and also a plug for my boss’s business…pay rise??? I wish lol) I then headed next door where the rest of the gang was. Rach was calculating something…its maths so I wasn’t interested, but i’m guessing chemical rates for their worker to spray out. Her dad and brother were re-calabrating the big red fancy seeding machine, while I got to chat to

On the weekend the kids and I went for another ride in the truck. This time out to Mr Mitchell’s. I love riding in the truck with my dad, as it ends up being around an hour I get to spend with him. Yes, I’m a daddy’s girl. And the kids love being with their pop too. Moments like these are very special. Dad was showing the kids how a header works by grinding the wheat heads in his hand and blowing the chaff away to leave the wheat. Then we ate some. Blake was chewing on it and asked could he swollow it or did he have to spit it out. Kids are cute! As we sit in the truck, waiting for it to fill up with grain, is a great time to spend with the kids. We sang songs and played games. You can see the overcast day we had. Weird warm day with the occasional rain

This Saturday the kids were bored so we jumped in Pop’s truck and headed out the road to pick up Mr Varone’s load of wheat. He’d stopped for the day as most area’s had a harvest ban on. You’d be mad to harvest when its stinking hot and the wind is blowing. If a fire started, which is easy in this heat, the wind could take it anywhere. While we were there I got to check out the new flash header. 🙂 Heading back into Pingaring bin with a full load. Yes, dads truck is old but it has aircon… do you think i could tell? NO! You can also see my Blundy boots, which have been sitting dormant for a while. I had to check for spiders! Driving up to the sampling hut and beyond that is the weighbridge. Our lovely local girls Julia and Shana are the bin samplers. Its a lean year so it dosn’t get

Its that time of year again…harvest. Though to look at this picture you’d think it was okay, but for our area in WA it’s quite grim. There was hardly any rain this year to help finish the crops. I think I heard it said that it’s the third worst year ever recorded…I may be wrong but it’s not bloody far off. I’m not a farmer, but my friends are and my dad is a local contractor who carts their grain. He’s not going to have much work this year. Normally he puts on a worker to drive his other truck, but this year he can cover it easily by himself…and he’s picked up extra farmers this year as other contractors head to better areas chasing more work. The heads in the above picture look alright but when you rub the grains out they are small and pinched/shrivelled. There are two tiny grains of wheat on the left

We’ve had Sally for about a month now and she has fitted in so well. (yes that is grass hanging off her lip LOL) My 7yr old daughter plays mum and cradles her in her arms a lot. Sally will be one adjusted dog. Her little personality is really shining through. Our older dog Gidget, who is 13, is getting less grumpy and lets Sally play with her…when no one is looking. I spent ten minutes watching them play the other day…when I should have been writing. But they were too cute to resist. As for our little chicks, we still have all 6 and they’re not so little anymore. I’ve lost a hen (it died…i’m not sure why) and we (as in my husband) got rid of our two roosters…they can now ‘cockadoodle doo’ to their hearts content. Hopefully now they are gone the hen’s will get their feathers back and will have

Our school holidays started with the picnic up the rock ritual. We pack some goodies (lamingtons and cream – yes I packed cream)and while the kids climbed all over the rocks mum and dad lay, soaking up the warmth along with the lizards. It was beautiful … but the view was on the dry yellow side of green. It was the same on our way to Hopetoun, the worst crops I’ve seen around our area and then two hundred kms down the road they turned into beautiful big green crops. Amazing what rain does. There is nothing that can save this harvest … if there even will be a harvest. Everyone is stretched to the hilt money wise and the banks will probably try to sell a few farms, only thing is no one will buy them!!! It’s hard to try and sell your farm to pay debts when no one can afford to buy

Love this time of year. All the wildflowers are coming out and most of my fruit trees are in full bloom. This is my peach/nectarine tree. It’s only a few years old, but it’s growing so well …. I think it’s the water we pump out from our tanks to there. They are thriving in it! Rubbing my hands together thinking of the fruit we will have this summer. Most of my tree’s are early fruiting. I have just planted some watermelon and rockmelons around the trees too. As long as I can keep the chooks away from them all. My kids are loving the new six chicks born over the last week. I’ve been waiting for the hens to get clucky so I can finally do away with my two roosters. Don’t get me wrong, they are beautiful roosters, but they have only one thing on their mind and they are making the hens

I went out to Burnside today (the Garard’s farm) as they were shearing. I needed a few pictures for the book trailer and for the website so people can see what I’m talking about when they read my next book. I found out today that there are three Burnside’s in WA (hence the PIN (for Pingaring) under the farm name on the bale). If your farm name is one of them, tell us where about in WA you are? I was hoping to take photo’s of the hero of my book, a blond muscly 28 year old shearer…but alas…he was nowhere to be seen. (Maybe he was off sick!?!) Actually I think he’s left and gone to work on the mines!! Anywhoo I got plenty of other shots and was even in time for Di’s morning smoko! What a treat! Sitting on a bale with a cuppa made by my mate Dennis with a range